Boy it's cold today. Still we are quite lucky, most of the eastern side of the country has ground to a halt. Lots of stories of 1 hour journeys taking 9 times that long! So we can't really complain. Although I love living in Bristol I do wish that we could get a little more snow down here, we miss out on all the snow related fun.

Spent lunchtime reading a feature in The Guardian about all these New York based bands that are taking over our world, Radio 4, Interpol, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Rapture and many others. It was also good to see The Boggs getting a mention, must admit that I don't play their CD a lot, but I really enjoyed the gig that they played in Bristol. Also delighted to see that Radio 4 have announced a Bristol gig in April, and that Calexico are coming to town as well!

Looks like Orynthia's dad is going to be in hospital for a least a couple more weeks. We went to see him straight after work last night, and the good news is that he is still in very good spirits. He was joking with the nice old man in the next bed, saying that his problem is that he is diabetic, whereas the chap next to him was diabolical. They both started chuckling away, which was nice to see. So often hospital visits can be hard work as every one tends to be rather downbeat (understandably). Over the past year or so we have had to spend quite a bit of time with people who are unwell in various ways. I tend to avoid discussing the current state of their health, as I figure that's all they have been thinking about. I see it as my job to lead the conversation towards the vacuous, trivial and humorous topics. Consequently after the visits I never know the answer to the "what medication are they on" "why are they doing that" sort of questions which people tend to ask you. It's probably part of that great male tendancy of avoiding issues. You know the sort of thing, never talk about anything serious when you can talk about football or music instead!